Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism

by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke and Gowri Ramnarayan

Book Overview

The rarely told story of Savitri Devi--a Frenchwoman and one of Hitler's most powerful advocates

In this window onto the roots and evolution of international neo-Nazism, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke reveals the powerful impact of one of fascism's most creative minds.

Savitri Devi's influence on neo-Nazism and other hybrid strains of mystical fascism has been continuous since the mid-1960s. A Frenchwoman of Greek-English birth,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814731104
• ISBN13: 9780814731109
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

An unecessary book, but great if you're really into the subject

Since this book has been well reviewed by others, I'll refrain from writing much about the content of the book. I've started to notice a tendency from the author to repeat himself a LOT in his books. Large parts of the various chapters are word for word taken from other places. My point is that if you buy the "Black Sun" book by the same author, you'll get everything about Devi you need to know in a condensed form, AND you get some bonus chapters. That being said, I did enjoy the book, but that is because I'm into the subject at hand, but I don't think most people will need to read a whole book about her, the chapter in "Black Sun" is quite enough, and the words are exactly the same, so. All in all, recommended but unecessary.

Savitri Devi: Hindu Nationalism and Esoteric Hitlerism

_Savitri Devi_ by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke is an extremely bizarre read on one of the more mystical figures in the neo-Nazi movement. Devi was born Maximiani Portas of Greek and English heritage in the south of France, and earned a Ph.D. in mathematics. She grew up feeling disillusioned with Western liberalism, and set out to India in the 1920's to study India's caste system as an example of racial segregation and the Hindu scriptures, in particular the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita, which she considered the most ancient examples of Aryan wisdom. She found India, the world's last Aryan pagan nation, to be a place poor but with an unbroken spirit, especially among the high caste Brahmins. She also viewed it as being under cultural assault by British colonization and its growing Muslim population. She joined the ant-British, anti-Muslim Hindu Mission (to spread Hinduism) and the Hindu Nationalist movement in India (groups which were to the right of Gandhi and favored militancy) which was under the leadership of V. D. Savarkar. Devi married a Brahmin, Asit Krishna Mukherji, who was well traveled in Europe and published a racialist and pro-Nazi magazine under the auspices of the German Consulate in India. Following the defeat of Germany in WWII, Devi went on three Nazi propaganda missions in Germany and even spent time in prison for subversive activities. During this time and the 1950s and 60s, Devi made contact with well known British and American neo-Nazis, among whom were George Lincoln Rockwell, Colin Jordan and John Tyndall. She also became aquainted with ex-Nazis such as the ace Hans Ulrich-Rudel and Leon Degrelle and others who had fled Germany and set up a networks in Spain, Latin America and the Middle East. She returned to India in 1971 and corresponded with Holocaust revisionist Ernst Zundel and the South American Nazi occultist Miguel Serrano. Devi published a number of books popular among the far-right and and also far-left environmentalist groups: _The Impeachment of Man_ (an argument for animal rights against a human-centered outlook), _A Warning to the Hindus_ (some of the aims of the Hindu Nationalist movement), _Pilgrimage_ (her reflections on her visit to post-WWII Germany), _Son of the Son_ (a study of Akhnaton who initiated the solar cult in Egypt, which Devi considered to be a forerunner of Nazism), and _The Lightning and the Sun_. _The Lightning and the Sun_ is Devi's most notorious book, in which she argues that Hitler is an incarnation of the god Vishnu the Preserver, a "Man Against Time" who intervened and fought against the process of decay in today's modern world, which is known as the Kali Yuga of the Hindus. Thus Savitri Devi managed to provide a theological justification for outright Hitler-worship in the context of an Aryan/pagan revival. Altogether, this is an even-handed book on a highly controversial and eccentric woman.

A Remarkably Balanced Treatment of a Controversial Thinker

A Jewish journalist once observed that when writing about Nazism, objectivity is regarded with suspicion and writers feel obliged to pile on the invective. Just see some of the editorial reviews above. This makes it all the more remarkable that Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke has written such a balanced book on Savitri Devi, who taught that we should love all God's creatures--except Jews. Although the author makes it clear that he does not share Devi's views, he lets her speak for herself, and he actually passes silently over some of her more unattractive and fanatical statements, which would surely be insuperable barriers to otherwise open-minded readers. I have only two objections to this book. First, the author does not adequately discuss Devi's deep philosophical debt to Nietzsche, who provides the framework for her interpretations of Akhnaton and Hinduism and makes possible their synthesis with National Socialism. Second, he never really captures Devi's unique and powerful personality--with its wild extremes of sentimentality and savagery, cold logic and enthusiastic rapture, love of cats and hatred for most human beings--which is stamped on all of her writings. It is her personality as much as her ideas that contributes to the haunting effect that she has on so many readers. Devi has already influenced the world we live in today--far more for her work on behalf of Hindu nationalism than National Socialism. This influence will only increase as global capitalism continues to ravage the natural world and homogenize the cultural world, thereby drawing new people to the deep-ecological rejection of anthropocentrism and to the politics of difference. This is a wonderful book. Read it, and the world will seem a richer and stranger place.

GREAT WORK OF SCHOLARSHIP!!!

An excellant well researched piece of scholarship! It combines academic detail with a clear writing style. Devi's life and work is a case where fact is stranger[and more fascinating] than fact. From her highly educated background [A PhD from Lyon University] to her association with American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell to her founding of the Green Movement, Goodrick-Clarke takes you on the "Magical Mystery Tour" of Devi's strange life. A must read. WELL DONE DR GOODRICK-CLARKE!!!

Very good read - buy it!!!!

"Her eyes burned with a strange luminous quality, the light of inner vision and missionary zeal." As a young woman in the 1920s she traveled extensively, earned a doctorate in mathematics, and admired Hitler and National Socialism. By the early 1930s she was in India seeking the roots of the ancient Aryans, and mastering the Hindi language and learning about the Hindu myths and religion.After WWII she tried to revive National Socialism. She wrote books, distributed propaganda, and consulted with former Third Reich warriors like Hans-Ulrich Rudel. She was imprisoned for speaking out. The Nazi women she met in prison only reinforced her belief in the pan-Aryan cause.One of her books, The Lightning and the Sun, is probably the most invigorating and uplifting writing in all the National Socialist literature. She posited two great Aryan qualities -- the sun (the sustainer) and the lightning (the destroyer). Hitler she believed was "the man against time," who had both qualities, and his followers are the bridge to the superman.Like other National Socialists, Devi revered Nature and was a serious conservationist. Despite the author's anti-Nazi bias, this is a great biography.